The Dreamstress

Latest Posts

Rats! Making 18th century and Edwardian hair pads

After years of making do with bun rolls, and bumpits, and pads made from old hairpieces, and ad-hoc hair supports made from stockings, I’ve really gotten into historical hair-pad making in the last 8 months.

I’ve been experimenting with different patterns for 18th century and Edwardian hair pads (or ‘rats’, as they were called in the late 19th and early 20th century), and using different stuffings and outer fabrics.

Patterns

For 18th century patterns, I’ve mainly been using the American Duchess book, and adjusting the size, shape, and pleat arrangements to get different effects.

I’ve made the 1760s/early 70s ‘banana’ in two slightly different shapes/lengths:

And the early 1780s ‘grub’:

And the later 1780s ‘arrowhead’:

My Edwardian hairpieces are extremely simple. Tubes in different lengths, with rounded ends:

Fabrics:

I’ve tried three different fabrics: a true leno weave cotton gauze (lower left), slightly textured wool knit (upper) and fine merino knit (lower right in dark grape).

The leno weave is by far my favourite: it’s easy to pin into, and the texture helps it to grip to hair and stay in place. The textured knit also works well, although it’s slightly harder to pin into. The merino, while it looks closest to the fabric used in the AD book, has been the least successful. It’s very tricky to pin into, and slips all over the place.

I’m very happy with the leno as an Edwardian-appropriate ‘rat’ fabric, but am not sure if it’s right for the 18th century. I’m planning on experimenting with a woven wool fabric, and perhaps a linen, for future 18th century pads. Wovens rather than knits seem more plausible in the 18th c, and a woven wool would certainly be more durable than a knit with lots of use and pinning.

Stuffings:

This is where things get…interesting.

For half my hair cushions I’ve used wool roving:

And for the others, I’ve used my own hair.

Yep.

It’s absolutely historically accurate. Using your own hair to stuff rats is documented throughout the 19th and early 20th century, and was almost certainly done in the 18th century as well. Why wouldn’t women use it? It’s free, it happens naturally, and using your hair to make it look like you have more hair just makes sense.

I collect mine off my hairbrush every day, and when I have enough I wash it just like you would wash your hair: warm water, shampoo, a bit of friction, and then dry. It tangles and felts, but that’s fine for hairpieces.

I’d use it for all my hairpieces, but I often end up dressing other peoples hair, and it’s nice to have hairpads to lend them that aren’t actually my hair (though why sheep’s hair is fine, but your own is weird, doesn’t really make logical sense).

Wool rovings do have the advantage of being less likely to work their way through the covers. Hair hairpieces can end up being a little…hairy.

These three are all wool.

I also want to try granulated cork and horsehair stuffings. I used all I’d got for testing the Frances Rump, and am having trouble sourcing more with Covid and shipping delays.

The Pads in Action:

Both Jenni & Elisabeth got a little extra height with the ‘Arrowheads’ for the Amalia Jacket photoshoot.

As did I with my witchy chemise hairdo:

The American Duchess 18th Century Beauty book, and Kendra of Demode’s ’18th Century Hair and Wig Styling’ (which is due to be re-published very soon!!!) both have great tutorials for using pads and styling your hair. I’ve combine their techniques depending on time constraints and how historically accurate I want to be.

I just used one of the Edwardian rats to give my friend Emily’s fine, delicate hair some volume for an Edwardian photoshoot:

Natalie has a great tutorial on making and using Edwardian hairpieces on her blog: A Frolic Through Time. She uses a slightly different technique than I do to make her hairpieces, but both work beautifully.

And finally, I made the ones filled with hair first, and they were my entry for:

The HSM 2020 June Challenge ‘It’s Only Natural’

What the item is: three (banana, grub and arrowhead) 1780s hair-filled hair pads

How it fits the challenge: The cotton leno weave is dyed with natural dyes (tea) to match my hair colour, the wool knit is wool, and all three are filled with my hair (which is definitely unexpected in this day and age!)

Material: cotton leno weave, wool knit.

Pattern: the American Duchess 18th c Dressmaking book, and period sources.

Year: ca. 1770, 1780, 1785

Notions: cotton thread, hair.

How historically accurate is it? I’m not at all sure about the fabrics, and human hair as a pad filling isn’t fully documented in the 18th century (as far as I’m aware – mentions don’t make it clear if it’s horse or human hair), although it’s extremely likely.

Hours to complete: about 2 – most of it drawing out the patterns 🤣

First worn: October 31 (arrowhead pad).

Total cost: $1 or less – the fabric was all scraps.

But wait, there’s more! I even made carry bags for both sets of hair pads:

Hot pink for hair, and white for wool, naturally!

Some day I’ll have enough to need 18th c bags, and Edwardian bags. Guess I’ll need some 18th c themed fabric too!

Dress in two parts, 1880s, Fashion Museum Bath

Rate the Dress: ca. 1880 blue on blue on blue with bows

Published by The Dreamstress

I’ve got a real soft-spot for ca. 1880’s fashion. There’s something about the combination of a fairly sleek silhouette and a ridiculous amount of trim that just tickles my fancy. It was also an era of experimentation and whimsy: silly pockets, and every type of embellishment you could imagine combined. Of course, some examples of the era pull off the ridiculousness better than others. Will this week’s Rate the Dress tickle your fancy?

Last Week: a ca. 1860 dress in stripey plaid

Mixed results on last week’s dress. Most of you liked the sleeves, although the trim was controversial. The fabric was hardly an unmitigated success: even if you liked the fabric’s colours and pattern you weren’t entirely on-board with the combination of print and cut, and thought the stripe-heavy plaid wasn’t suited to gores.

The Total: 7.3 out of 10

A rather mediocre score after the perfection of the week before.

This week: an 1880s reception gown in two parts

There’s an interesting tension to the aesthetic of this gown.

Dress in two parts, 1880s, Fashion Museum Bath

The skirt is absolutely conventionally fashionable for the early 1880s, with its pleated ruffle at the hem, front ruching, ribbon bows, and trained back. But there’s just a hint of the aesthetic movement in the bodice. It’s only a tiny suggestion, but the puffed oversleeves with their ruched cuffs, straight waist, and front gathered bodice all hint at an alternative view of fashion.

Dress in two parts, 1880s, Fashion Museum Bath

There’s some rather clever elements to this dress if you look closely. The way the stripes are used on the bodice to create the impression of a separate centre front panel. The buttons on the waistband, which may mean the train is detachable (and possibly even a later addition to the dress?). Alternatively, the buttons may be a way to fasten the bodice to the skirt. They could be part of the skirts waistband, and fasten through the bodice to hold the two parts perfectly in place.

Dress in two parts, 1880s, Fashion Museum Bath

What do you think? Is this hitting the sweet spot of ca. 1880 fashion?

Rate the Dress on a Scale of 1 to 10

A reminder about rating — feel free to be critical if you don’t like a thing, but make sure that your comments aren’t actually insulting to those who do like a garment. Phrase criticism as your opinion, rather than a flat fact. Our different tastes are what make Rate the Dress so interesting. It’s no fun when a comment implies that anyone who doesn’t agree with it, or who would wear a garment, is totally lacking in taste.

As usual, nothing more complicated than a .5. I also hugely appreciate it if you only do one rating, and set it on a line at the very end of your comment.

Doing a Full Bust Adjustment (FBA) on the Ngaio Blouse

Published by The Dreamstress

The Ngaio Blouse pattern comes with separate pattern pieces for Small (A-B), Medium (C-DD/E) & Large (F+) cup sizes. This means it works for people with high and full bust differences from 2″-4″.

If your high-full bust difference is more than 4″ (or you just find it a big snug across the bust), here’s how to do a Full Bust Adjustment (FBA) on the Ngaio Blouse.

First, because I’m a massive nerd, and love explaining why things need to happen, rather than just telling people they do, here’s all the why’s behind FBAs and the Ngaio blouse.

Why you might need an FBA

The way I have you calculate cup size in the Ngaio Blouse pattern is to measure the difference between your full bust measure, and your high bust measure:

The bigger the difference between your high bust and your full bust, the bigger your cup size.

It’s a simple but effective system, but does have some drawbacks, because it’s only two measurements.

I discuss this system, why it’s used, why it works, but why it is also an imperfect system in ‘The Ngaio Blouse: the difference in cup size, illustrated’.

You’ll probably want an FBA if you have more than a 4” difference between your high bust and full bust.

You may also want an FBA if you have less than a 4″ difference, but have a longer measure from your shoulder to underbust than the shoulder to underbust measure of Piece A of the pattern.

You might have a longer measure at this point due to bust shape, even if your high bust to full bust is less than 4”.

If your measure is longer than this measure, the pattern won’t sit under your bust: it will sit partway up your bust. If you don’t want that, you might want to do an FBA.

And finally, you just might want an FBA if the largest cup size of the Ngaio feels snug in the bust, even if you technically fit the measures: sometimes the combination of the way you are shaped means the measures say one thing, but the way a garment fits and feels says another.

Understanding Fullness: How an FBA Works

In patterns darts, or dart equivalent gathers and seamlines, are used to take a garment at the narrow parts of a body, and let it out over the wide parts of a body. The bigger the angle of the dart opening (or the more little darts you have that add up to one big dart angle), the bigger the bulge (yep, that’s really the term they use in pattern manipulation!) the pattern can accomodate.

A standard FBA turns a small dart into a large one, to accomodate a bigger bust bulge.

But what if there’s no dart? Then you have to figure out where the dart would have been: where the taking in and releasing of fullness is coming from.

In the Ngaio Blouse the fullness comes from two places: the centre front gathers, and the curved underbust seam.

Most of the fullness comes from the gathers. Gathers are really just invisible darts: the negative space of the dart turned into gathering. More gathers at the neck = more fabric releasing to accomodate a fuller bust.

However, there’s only so much gathering you can squish into that point before it gets bulky, so if you want to do a large FBA on the Ngaio Blouse, you also have to start adjusting the curved underbust seam.

So, let’s do it!

How to do an FBA on the Ngaio Blouse

For the FBA on the Ngaio blouse we’re going to be working with two pattern pieces: A & B. I recommend working with the Large bust piece, but any of the sizes will do: you’ll just end up with different numbers when you do the math in Step 2.

Step 1:

Mark two lines on A and one on B.

A.1 (in pink) should go from 1/3 of the way up the center front curve of A, to 1/3 of the way up the armhole. This line will be adding to the gathers.

A.2 (in blue) should go from 1/3-1/2 way along A.1, down to 1/4 to 1/3 along the bottom curved edge. Both points should be closer to the centre front than to the side seam.

B (in blue) should go across the top of the point of B, an equal length from the top of the point as A.2 is from the center front.

The blue lines will be adding to the underbust curve, and giving you more shoulder to bust length in the pattern, as well as more space around the width of the bust.

Exciting mathematical interlude

Maths.

Sorry, there’s no getting away from it in patternmaking and pattern adjusting: you’re going to have to do maths in order to figure out how much you’ll need to adjust the pattern pieces.

I’m doing all these maths in imperial, because inches divide into quarters, which can be helpful in patternmaking. You can do it in metric too.

Measure your high bust and full bust. Example: HB = 40” FB = 46”

Subtract your high bust from your full bust. 46” – 40” = 6”

Now subtract 4″ (if using the Large A) or 3” (if using the Medium A) or 2” (if using the Small A) from this number. I’m using Large A, so 6” – 4” = 2”

The number you are left with is the amount you need to add to the pattern to accomodate your bust. In this case: just 2”

Divide this # by 2 (because we’re working with 1/2 the pattern – so we only need 1/2 a measure). 2 divided by 2 = 1

Now divide this number by 2 again (for the two places we’ll be adjusting) 1 divided by 2 = .5 / 1/2”

This number is your Final (or fabulous, that works too) Adjustment Number (FAN), and it’s what you’ll be adding to the pattern at every place you adjust it.

Step 2

Got your final number? Hurrah!

Slash your pattern open along the pink line, just to, but not through, the armhole line.

Using your tiny paper hinge, open the pattern the up the FAN measure.

Tape another piece of paper under the opening, to hold it in place while you keep making more adjustments.

Step 3

There’s two options for Step 3, based on the shape of your bust, and what you want to achieve.

If your FAN was quite small (under 1/2″) you probably want to slash and spread your A.2 line like so, with the opening matching your FAN measure:

If your FAN is 1/2″ or over, you probably want to open your A.2. line up like so, with equal amounts opened at top and bottom:

TIP: draw a line perpendicular to A.2 (shown in orange) before you slash it open, to ensure that you keep the opening equal and balanced as you open it.

Unsure about which to do in Step 3? Something halfway between the two (partly open at the top) also works. I show this in Step 4.

Step 4

Now we’re moving on to Piece B. Slash and spread the blue line on Piece B the same amount you opened the bottom of the blue line on Piece A (aka, your FAN).

Step 5

Almost there!

Tape paper behind all your gaps to keep them tidy and stabilised, and then use a french curve to re-draw all your lines.

If in doubt about where to re-draw the curves, try to add to the pattern pieces, rather than taking away.

Here’s what they look like with a closed-at-the-tip A.2:

And a parallel-opened A.2:

The End! (or, the beginning?)

And that’s how to do an FBA on the Ngaio Blouse!

Here’s the big thing though: bodies are amazing and unique, and not at all one-size-fits-all. This tutorial is a tool that you can customise to make it perfect for you (just like everything in sewing!). So if you really get into making Ngaio blouses, and using this tutorial, I’d recommend playing with it. Try opening the pink line more than the blue, or vice versa.

Happy sewing!